editing

I feel like I was the last person on earth to see this movie. Positive reviews were flowing all over twitter while it was in theaters and I could never seem to drag myself to the theaters, even though it seemed right up my alley. Crime drama, slow burn story, awesome actors, intense violence, fast cars, 80′s vibe. Whatever the case, I didn’t get to see this until it finally came out on blu ray, and it completely decimated me. The artistry of it is kind of hard to believe in this day and age, where the people with money can’t seem take a risk to save their family’s life. A lot of industry talk with the film has centered around its use of dissolves, and that is what really struck me as well. Personally, I am not a big fan of them. They have to be used sparingly, in my mind, and only at specific times. This comes from a lot of abuse early in my career due to a producer that required them on every transition. Well, this film just threw that ideology back in my face, and time and time again proved that the dissolve needs a rebirth of sorts. On top of that I think the actor Ryan Gosling is a force to be reckoned with and every movie I see with him these days hammers that point home.

It has been a while since I have put the time and effort into one of these breakdowns. It took a scene of this caliber to throw me into action, and I am so glad I did. There are so many things I learned through studying this over and over, and I hope you can glean something from it as well.
Most of my analysis is from a film editorial perspective but there will certainly be comments that deal more with directing and the other disciplines. First, I have to give credit where credit is due. Drive was released theatrically in 2011. The Director was Nicolas Winding Refn, the Film Editor was Mat Newman, and the Cinematographer was Newton Thomas Sigel. In new form I must include the Sound Designers, Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis, as well as the Composer, Cliff Martinez, who I am guilty of forgetting to credit in previous posts. This scene comes right after the notorious elevator scene at the 1-hour, 13-minute, and 23 second mark and is just over 2 minutes long.

1) This is actually the last shot of the previous scene, but it leads nicely into the scene I have been looking at so I included it here. It is the completion of a pretty intense scene in the movie where the main character, known only as Driver, utterly destroys another man in an elevator while his love interest looks on. At the end of the scene she has exited the elevator and Driver is left standing there as the door closes. Through the last couple shots there has been a steady tone playing in the score. Just after the sound of the elevator door shutting, another deep tone rises in volume and leads us into a hard cut to the next scene.

So I diverted from my plan a little with this post. In the last entry, I proposed that I would continue with the feature film breakdowns for a while before going to other mediums; but I lied. This week I was deep into a marathon of the second season of the exquisite AMC show, Mad Men, when one of the episodes jumped out as an excellent candidate for a breakdown. This breakdown is quite different as well, in that it looks at the opening and closing scenes of the episode. The beginning is a great little montage that really sets up the first dialogue scene perfectly and the ending is a beautiful capstone to all the story points covered in the episode. Even though they don’t directly reference each other I had to include both of them in this breakdown. Both scenes have my favorite characteristics of good storytelling; they draw you in and they stay with you after they have passed. Most of my analysis is from a film editorial perspective but there will certainly be comments that deal more with directing and the other disciplines. First, I have to give credit where credit is due.

Mad Men is a dramatic series created and produced by Matthew Weiner; following the inner workings of an ad agency set in the 1960′s. It premiered on July 19, 2007 on the AMC cable channel and has since cleaned up on the awards circuit, garnering numerous Emmy and Golden Globe awards. The episode I chose to look at is “Maidenform”. The Director of the episode was Phil Abraham, the Editor was Cindy Mollo, and the Cinematographer was Chris Manley. The first scene begins at the 37-second mark and is 1-minute long. The final scene begins at the 45-minute, 35-second mark and is 1-minute, 40-seconds long. As in previous posts, for a couple examples I used multiple screenshots over the length of one shot to show varying action and camera moves.

1) To begin we cut from black. The song “The Infanta” by the The Decemerists starts playing instantly, also cutting on rather than fading in. The opening line in the song we hear is, “Here she comes”, then the guitar and drums slam in. It is quite appropriate to this montage, which involves the 3 main female characters in the show and serves the study in female strength that this episode deals with. From black, we are in a shot tracking to the left while also panning right to left. We move along a bed in a medium shot; 2-frames in, a woman’s arms and back appear. She is just finishing up putting on her undergarments.

In the second installment of my series of breakdowns, I chose something a little more modern and with a little bit more action. There were two other films that crossed my mind but I decided to hold off on them till later and went with a flick that has been sitting out on our desk for while. I knew that I wanted to look at a scene with a little bit more action motivated cutting, but at the same time didn't think I was ready for a complete action scene. I feel this scene from The Dark Knight has the elements of action that I wanted but also has long sit-down dialogue editing as well. From numerous film editor interviews I have read and listened to, a common thread appears; although fast cutting action scenes and montage are fun to put together, the simple conversation scene can be the most challenging and rewarding. When you don't have images flashing and speeding around to hold the audiences attention, even more care must go into the pacing and rhythm of the conversation to keep the viewer enthralled. This scene has a bit of both, an intense back and forth between our hero, Batman, and his nemesis, the Joker, as well as some quick violent action. Most of my analysis is from a film editorial perspective but there will certainly be comments that deal more with directing and the other disciplines. First, I have to give credit where credit is due.

The Dark Knight debuted theatrically in 2008. The Director was Christopher Nolan, the Film Editor was Lee Smith, and the Cinematographer was Wally Pfister. It is the sequel to Nolan's reboot of my favorite comic book franchise, and in my opinion the better of the two new Batman movies. But this is not a review; it is a study of editing. My favorite scenes in the film to watch have to be the car chase ending in the spectacular truck flipping sequence and the section where the Joker blows up the hospital; but the scene we are going to look at takes place right after the Joker is arrested. This is the scene where he is being interrogated at the police station, and is called "Good Cop Bad Cop" in the chapter menu. It starts at the 1 hour, 25 minute and 30 second mark. Its length is just over 5 minutes, and there are around 90 shots. In a couple examples I used multiple screenshots over the length of one shot to show varying action. I, again, have to split this analysis over 2 postings due to the amount of time and shots in the scene.

The Human in the Machine is a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals focused on the relational aspects of the editorial process. Blog pages and bookshelves everywhere are flooded with technical information on the craft of editing, but there seems to be little out there on the human side of it all. Even though much of our work is technical based, what is at the heart of it all is spending 10-15 hours a day locked in a room, usually with other people, creating stuff. What makes those other people come back to your edit suite instead of walking down the hall to the next one? Why do so many editors and directors reference a “psychic relationship” where they instinctively know how the other would proceed with an edit? Some of my questions don’t even pertain to editing alone, but all work that involves relationships and collaboration. I think, especially in school, so much of the curriculum is geared toward the tech side instead of the human side. As much as it doesn’t seem fair, a big part of this industry is not based on raw talent and knowledge but on politics, connections, and people skills. You can either fight this truth or decide to train those muscles with the same intensity that you train your technical skill set. Hopefully each of these interviews give you a better idea of how to approach this human side of the business and how to create the work relationships that keep clients coming back for more.

Here is how Jeanne describes her climb,
I never started out to do this. I was a painter who got into computer graphics and effects work before a lot of other people…it was dumb luck, and a very fortunate meeting with Wyndham Hannaway. I consider him a God. Beyond that I have had the good fortune of working with wonderful people through the years who have given me a chance to try things, and who have been willing to share their expertise.
I worked my way up from the overnight “news” artist at KUSA, to Art Director in the late 80′s. Then spent 15 years at Citizen Pictures (went in as Art Director, left as President/ Partner). My time at Citizen was invaluable and afforded me the opportunity to direct. Five years ago, I left Citizen to form Mrs K, and though I still have a deep passion for broadcast design, over the past 18 years I have pretty much exclusively directed (hopefully with an artist’s eye). Our work is primarily national and international. In Sept. 2010 Peter and I took over complete ownership of Mrs K. and moved the company to Boulder. 2011 has been our most successful year to date. Life is good.

The Human in the Machine is a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals focused on the relational aspects of the editorial process. Blog pages and bookshelves everywhere are flooded with technical information on the craft of editing, but there seems to be little out there on the human side of it all. Even though much of our work is technical based, what is at the heart of it all is spending 10-15 hours a day locked in a room, usually with other people, creating stuff. What makes those other people come back to your edit suite instead of walking down the hall to the next one? Why do so many editors and directors reference a “psychic relationship” where they instinctively know how the other would proceed with an edit? Some of my questions don’t even pertain to editing alone, but all work that involves relationships and collaboration. I think, especially in school, so much of the curriculum is geared toward the tech side instead of the human side. As much as it doesn’t seem fair, a big part of this industry is not based on raw talent and knowledge but on politics, connections, and people skills. You can either fight this truth or decide to train those muscles with the same intensity that you train your technical skill set. Hopefully each of these interviews give you a better idea of how to approach this human side of the business and how to create the work relationships that keep clients coming back for more.

Here is how Eric describes his road to the edit chair.

My love for film started as a young boy, sitting in an empty theater watching a final showing of the Star Wars’ re-release in southeastern Pennsylvania. Like many, it captured my imagination but I was too young to realize I could make a career of it. Decades later I left my job as a computer professional and relocated to Los Angeles. After many ups-and-downs in the film industry I discovered that picture editing was my passion; it was the perfect fit of everything I had ever done and imagined I could do. They say “timing is everything” and three years ago I got my chance to edit an independent film called Bedrooms which went on to win two Best Feature awards and recently aired on Showtime. My next project, LJE The Journey, was a Nigerian-American film which became one of Nigeria’s top grossing films of all time as well as winning awards for Best Editing and Best Feature. My current film is an urban music drama called Filly Brown and will be completed later this year.

The Human in the Machine is a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals focused on the relational aspects of the editorial process. Blog pages and bookshelves everywhere are flooded with technical information on the craft of editing, but there seems to be little out there on the human side of it all. Even though much of our work is technical based, what is at the heart of it all is spending 10-15 hours a day locked in a room, usually with other people, creating stuff. What makes those other people come back to your edit suite instead of walking down the hall to the next one? What keeps those other people from killing you, or what keeps you from killing them? Why do so many editors and directors reference a “psychic relationship” where they instinctively know how the other would proceed with an edit? Some of my questions don’t even pertain to editing alone, but all work that involves relationships and collaboration. I think, especially in school, so much of the curriculum is geared toward the tech side instead of the human side. Unfortunately, I know too many great guys who are wicked machine operators but fall short in the client-relations category. They can soak up tutorials and spit out phenomenal work but you put a client over their shoulder who they have to entertain for the day and they’ll keel over. Even though it doesn’t seem fair, a big part of this industry is not based on raw talent and knowledge but on politics, connections, and people skills. You can either fight this truth or decide to train those muscles with the same intensity that you train your technical skill set. Hopefully each of these interviews give you a better idea of how to approach this human side of the business and how to create the work relationships that keep clients coming back for more.
If you haven’t read it yet, check out the first interview with Director David Smith. In this latest one I got to chat with Editor and friend, Agustin Rexach. I met him through the wonderful world of twitter as @ECedit and his generosity in sharing time and knowledge over the last year or so has been staggering, especially in the support he gave when I made the big move out to Colorado. He is the epitome of the act of paying it forward, and inspires me in that regard. His responses to my questions below are yet another example of how he goes above and beyond; there is so much gold in his perspective on the craft. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

This is a slight deviation from the ongoing series of Feature Scene Breakdowns that I have neglected for the last six month or so. Being apart of the advertising industry now, I am finding myself much more attentive to the ad work that seems to assault me from every screen I own these days and I thought I should include it in this personal study. One huge upside of being within agency walls is a glorious room full of demo reels from over the years for Directors, Creative Editors, DP’s, FX Houses and even Catering companies (jokes). I have been trying to take advantage of that opportunity to study the work of the advertising realm masters. It was in one of those reels that I discovered this little gem of a spot from New Zealand for the Sky TV news network.

“West Bank” was released in December of 2009. The agency was DDB, Auckland. The Director was Cole Webley, the Cinematographer was Travis Cline, and the Editor was Kim Bica out of Arcade Edit. For me, the beauty of the spot is in how much editorial had to play in its success, and how invisible that hand is. Invisibility has long been a description of the craft and of the editor’s role; which as of late has been changing with the new, MTV-influenced styles. In many programs, the editorial practice has become much more apparent to the viewer. Rather than seamless cuts that distract you from the fact that they are even happening, the jumpcut has certainly become a star player these days. “West Bank” is a very high energy spot that plays out entirely on a battlefield, and lends itself to a jumpcut style. The artistry is that most of the cuts, although jumpcuts by definition, are masterfully stitched together shots that appear to be continuous.

Bringing a little class back to the edit suite. It all started with a school assignment to make a commercial that spiraled out of control into an episode of COPS where the Pepsi Police took down a Coke ring. Years went by and I discovered video again in College in Cincinnati, where I stayed and started my career in post production. I have returned to the mountainous region of my forefathers and my future begins again. I am spending most of my waking moments on the lookout for any loose images that need to be put together in time and space with sound. I have a film editor's heart hidden within an advertising exoskeleton and I believe the cut is the greatest transition.